Anne McCaffrey

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Has anyone read any of her books?

I just read The Mystery Of Ireta and I'm currently enjoying The Planet Pirates.

oooh, Tserwi!!

you have such a nice little avatar of a little green friend!

Merle

Thanks!

The name told me something, but I had to look her up on Amazon to remember why. I read some of the "Dragonriders of Pern" series some years ago, they were quite enjoyable.

Cool. Which was your favorite of the Dragonriders series?

My favorite was "The white dragon". It's the third one, I had read the first three books in the series. Maybe it's because the main character, Jaxom, is somewhat of an outsider in that one so I best could relate to it, dunno. Anyway, have you read them, if not I'd recommend all of them.

By the way, I remember too little from those books because I soon after stopped reading sci-fi/fantasy for some years, though recently I tried the genre again and read "Stranger in a strange land" by Robert A. Heinlein, which is supposed to be a classic (quite another style and topics than Anne McCaffrey!). Have you read that, or has anyone here?

I have read any in that series yet or books by Heinlein either. Thanks for your recommendations though. One scifi book that I thought was particularly good was Tambu. It reads well although I thought it was sad about the choices Tambu was forced to make and how lonely he became as a result.

McCaffrey seems to be a love or hate type author. (I've read all of her books btw) Some folks have trouble with her female characters for some reason.

She does spin wonderful worlds with good stories.


Heinlein is in a whole 'nother league though. He creates beautiful stories. Everything after that is a bonus. Stranger in a Strange Land should be a must read for Aspies everywhere. Put yourself in the role of the main character and its like reading about yourself...well cept for the strange martian super powers... hehe He has no basis for reading people or any of the social conventions. He goes on to learn about them. Heinlein does a decent job of describing the society pitfalls for someone who doesn't understand or see these interactions.

Indeed!! He's quite literally on the wrong planet, and his pitfalls are soooo easy to grok

I have read all of the Dragonriders of Pern, Crystal Singer, and Dinosaur Planet books. I have also read 'Get Off The Unicorn' and 'The Coelura'. She is one of my favorite authors.

I've read a couple of her books, but they seem to all be in series. After Robert Jordan's never ending Wheel of Time books, I decided not to read anything in a series unless I can borrow all of them in order. But I do like dragons, maybe I'll try again.

I met Anne McCaffery at WorldCon in Glasgow, I -think- that was 1995. I have a hard time remembering. She said that some of her characters were based on people, but that there were also a lot of people she had met afterwards who were just like her characters.

I liked the earlier Pern books, but as the series went on, I found it increasingly problematic. Whole segments of the universe could change without warning, without real explanation and without any really good reason. Elements that were important suddenly vanished. The politics (and not just in the Pern books) were even more troublesome to me.

However, each book - taken individually - was generally very well-written, imaginative and attention-keeping.

Now, I should point out that I am very tough on authors, but generally less so on individual books. Every book in a series can be good and yet I might still consider the series as a whole to be naff and the author an idiot. For science fiction, though, I am hard on books and totally ruthless on authors. Very few books and no authors at all meet my standards entirely (which are so alien from everyone else's that it's amazing that we're even talking about the same genre), so I make do with what people will write. Which is generally very good, but not what I'm wanting. What I want doesn't exist, never has and probably never will, so I'd be the fool if I waited for it.

Hmmm...I've only read a few of her books, but I'd have to say my favourite is definitely Dragonsdawn. I generally like science fiction, and I she did a bang up job with that...then again, I was probably 15 when I read it =)

I do really enjoy Heinlein's stuff, as well, but it seems to me to be an entirely different breed. Stranger in a Strange Land was a wonderful book, if a bit dry. Another one I really enjoyed was Job: A Comedy of Justice, not to mention myriad other short stories that he's written.

Oh, we discussing McCaffrey, right? =)